Sutter Adjusting To New Role With Hershey

HERSHEY, Pa. - A four-year span of time in hockey often prompts many changes, sometimes in teams, playing style, or even in playing position.

For Riley Sutter, the evolution of his game in that time has required a great deal of patience, perseverance, and a change in mentality.

"I've been pretty privileged and lucky to kind of stay with the same team as my career has gone on, and hopefully I can continue to do that," said Sutter after scoring the game's opening goal in a 4-3 SO victory over the Lehigh Valley Phantoms on February 25 at Giant Center.

Sutter, who spent four seasons in the WHL, played for the Everett Silvertips. He played in 204 regular season games, recording 60 goals and 76 assists. In 32 playoff games, he recorded nine goals and 12 assists.

But while Sutter was a top-six forward in Everett and becoming known for his offensive productivity, his game has had to evolve a bit in the AHL. One noticeable change this season is Sutter’s physical presence on the ice.

"This is the first full year of kind of accepting my role as what Washington and Hershey want me to do, and it's kind of [being] more of a bottom six player down here," Sutter said. "So I'm accepting my role and just trying to do whatever I can."

Just now accepting the role this season, his fourth in Hershey, is not saying that he was not happy with that role the previous three seasons.

It has definitely not been a dream experience at the professional level for Sutter, who has seen the 2019-2020 season end after 21 games due to a COVID shutdown.

Then in the pandemic-shortened 2020-2021 season, he appeared in 25 more games for the Bears recording nine assists.

2021-2022 was equally unkind to Sutter who missed all but 39 games due to a preseason injury. But he started to find his stride, recording a pair of goals and six assists down stretch last season.

"Yeah, it's tough," Sutter admitted. "Obviously, I've been injured a lot, so I've kind of taken away and learned from things and just tried to stay mentally positive, because when you're injured, it's obviously pretty tough to stay positive at times not being around the team. So you just have to find ways to stay active and do all you can to get back as quick as you can."

That positivity and work ethic have yielded four goals and five assists through 49 games, but it is his efforts on the Hershey PK that are also noticeable.

"I think we're all just buying into the system that our coaches are putting in place and know we're executing, executing that," Sutter said of the success of the PK unit over the last five games where they successfully killed over 94% of their opponents PP chances. "You know, obviously, goalies need to make big stops at big moments, and our goalies have been doing that, and we're just trusting the process. So I think if we continue to do that, we're gonna have a lot of success down the stretch."

Additionally, Sutter believes that buying into the system will help propel the Bears into the Calder Cup Playoffs as the Bears look to make a deep push into the playoffs in search of Calder Cup Trophy #12.

Kind of like what I just said, I think we just have to buy into the systems, and, you know, we know we've got the group in there," Sutter explained. "It's just a matter of fact, we want to buy into it and trust one another, because we've got the team and we're definitely capable of making a run for sure."

While uncertain how the season will end, whether with a cup or not, Sutter, a third round (#93 overall) pick in the 2018 draft by the Capitals, is also facing a bit of uncertainty as a restricted free agent for the first time in his career.

"It's definitely in the back of my head, but at the end of the day, it's not up to me what they want to offer me," Sutter admitted. "I just have to do everything I can and play my best. So at the end of the day, hopefully, they noticed that I'm doing everything I can and hopefully can earn another contract."

However it shakes out, Sutter said, "It's been a lot of fun this year, hopefully, we can keep going."